


turn my minutes into hours

by secretsarenotforfree



Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [1]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Bob Rights, Crushing, Emails, F/M, Pre-Law!Kate, Scruffy Castle, THAT NOT ONE INDIVIDUAL ASKED FOR, Teacher Kink, another college au, lmao that last ones a joke, this is me taking the pilot vibes and running with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27520639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: Because here she was, three weeks into the fall semester, and despite her neat handwritten notes, complete with borders and bolds and swipes of her purple highlighter, but every time class ended she had to go over them like she had never seen them before. Kate had learned jack all in this class so far, and it was all his fault.
Relationships: Jenny O'Malley Ryan/Kevin Ryan, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034472
Comments: 13
Kudos: 22





	turn my minutes into hours

**Author's Note:**

> do NOT ask me where this idea came from, but it's here, fully fledged, and i'm drop kicking it out of the nest. i wanted to finish this for caskettaw Free Choice day but i don't think it belongs there, alas. i have more stored for this somewhere so if you want more of this 'verse lemme know, because i am in love with this actually.
> 
> title from 'pov' by ariana grande which is a caskett song as surely as i breathe

She's got a bone to pick.

A big one, like a dinosaur’s damn femur or something, Smithsonian museum worthy, big enough and heavy enough to fully express how absolutely _pissed_ off she is at every single person who recommended this class to her. Because Kate was. Kate wanted to go full berserk and threaten each of them personally because _they_ were the reason that she was here, closer to the threat of something harming her objectively hard to maintain 3.8 GPA than she had been in the three years of college she'd gotten through so far. 

How the hell had she gotten herself into this situation again?

It was just supposed to be something in the mid hundreds level to help her finish the requirements of her minor. Something that wouldn't have Kate bored out of her skull, but wouldn't stress her the hell out like Criminal Psychology 317. Something to rack up a few more credits with senior year looming ever closer in the distance. There had been a couple options, ultimately, but Contemporary Character Development with Professor Marlowe had been the one most recommended, after she asked around. Now, of course, Kate knew that they were all filthy liars.

(She hated liars.)

Because here she was, three weeks into the fall semester, and despite her neat handwritten notes, complete with borders and bolds and swipes of her purple highlighter, every time class ended she had to go over them like she had never seen them before. Kate had learned jack all in this class so far, and it was all _his_ fault.

The stupid freaking T.A.

The stupid, freaking, blindingly handsome, frustratingly witty T.A. that had absolutely consumed her attention since he skidded in late day one of class and made it literally impossible for Kate to learn a damn thing. There was precious little about him on that stupid syllabus that she pored over frantically when she managed to drag her gaze from this…. _this…._ him. That. Mocking Times New Roman had the audacity to talk about Professor Marlowe’s late policy and office hours in unnecessary thorough language, but right next to T.A. it only had the name _Richard Rodgers_ with a university email _._ It was rather an ordinary name, though she guesses she can’t judge - there’s hell of a lot of dead people dust that used to be named just like her, but the first name, at least, suits him.

Speaking of the damned syllabus, Kate had a bone to pick with it too, because there should have been _warnings_ about him. Not warni _ng_ , warning _s_ , with an s, because one would not be enough. There should have been multiple, in all kinds of colors, largest Print Ever, warnings telling people that if you had any susceptibility to blue eyes, had a weakness for devilish, boyish grins, or had any sort of reaction to devastating, casual good looks that you should absolutely not take this course. Because, turns out, Kate had _all_ of those things and she was absorbing basically nothing about literature. She wasn't learning a damn thing about motifs, and drive, and backstory, when all she could manage to remember was whatever little facts about him that she managed to scrape together every week from the double dosage of an hour and twenty minutes.

(Kate had even surrendered all logical thought _and_ standing as the sane member of her friend group when she went full detective on the guy and starting gathering data from word of mouth, intensely curious internet searches, and the too loud gossip of the guy one row over who _also_ has a crush on him.

She hadn't doubted he would have groupies of a sort - hell, if she was being honest Kate _was_ one - but didn't mean she liked it. Even more ridiculous that she preferred her feelings to be privately had and not by others when she hadn't even _spoken_ to him yet. Not really.

But that's besides the point.)

Things Kate Now Knew:

  1. She’d been right about the name. When he introduced himself he said Rodgers was his mother name and he preferred to be called Richard _Castle_ as he’d recently made legal. Kate had never met a person who’d gotten their name changed officially before, but she decided in this case that it was aproppo. It fit him more, somehow. The romanticism and grandeur of the _Castle._ She’d never felt uncomfortable in the name Kate - it was Katherine that didn’t sit right on her shoulders, that didn’t fit the willowy curves and razor sharp mind of her and made her feel stuffier and old than she was. Either way, in his case, she’s more than willing to accept the change.
  2. He wasn’t a college student. Well he sort of was - he was a grad student in the English program but he hadn't done his undergrad here. Maybe twenty four or twenty five if Kate was reading him right and seeing anything clearly through the long minutes spent stuck, fascinatedly on the slightly crooked slant of that rugged nose, or the long golden brown butterfly wing lashes, or the unreasonably thick 90’s heartthrob hair. 
  3. (The hair warrants its own statement discovery, because Kate had always had a weakness for that nineties heartthrob hair. John Stamos, Rider Strong, the animated guy from Anastasia. She had a vulnerability, it _was_ that hair, and of course, of course, he had it. He had it, and he played with it _constantly_ , brushing it out of his eyes in the middle of a particularly fervent typing session doing...whatever in the middle of lecture. Running a hand through it when he was frustrated, unfairly coming to class when it was wet and he was _clearly_ fresh from a shower and catapulting all sorts of inappropriate, absolutely should not be associated with your freaking T.A. thoughts into Kate’s head.)
  4. (There was a special place in hell reserved for everything that hair caused in Kate’s imagination.)
  5. His mom was a professor too. She was the head of the theatre department and a whirlwind of redheaded energy Kate had actually seen on campus before, a riot of classy, bright colors, an accent that had only seen come from people who were Technicolor instead of real, and usually trailing an assortment of adoring students in some area of the arts who praised her every tidbit of fact. Professor Martha was the reason that he was even here, close friends with Professor Marlowe who got her overqualified son to help him out when his initial TA had dropped out. It was only when googling ‘Richard Castle’ instead of Rodgers that Kate added the overqualified bit to the word son because the man had actually published a _book._ A whole novel called _In a Hail of Bullets_ that Kate had ordered on Amazon the second she’d found about it.
  6. There should've been someone, anyone really, who should've stopped whatever powers that be from mixing together all these ingredients and making a person because it should be illegal to give someone eyes that blue _and_ make them a damn master wordsmith because that's not fair. It is so, so not fair when she bumps into him leaving class and almost drowns in those deep blues that are made up of as many shades as the emotions that she imagines flit through them. Those _dumb,_ stupid, _romantic_ eyes that belonged to someone who had her locked in a battle to the death with her kindle of who would win first, her three hours of sleep the night before or the ravenous way she was consuming his damn book.
  7. (She can't confirm it, but Kate's pretty sure that sometimes in class he's writing. Microsoft Office looks the same on everyone's computer, after all, even from six rows back from the front where he was usually perched.) The other day, he'd taken up a post at the end of the whiteboard instead, all helpful quips and secret smiles, and she almost choked on her tongue when he took the opportunity to stretch. How dare he. Seriously, how fucking dare he. Reach his arms above his head with fingers laced, those too long lashes pressed together, turn his head at all angles that Kate eagerly soaked in. 
  8. He'd been wearing a blue thermal that day.
  9. Even more reason he should be flagged as radioactive or something. Highly dangerous chemicals ignited in her the second she got within radius of Richard Castle and Kate was highly unprepared for it every freaking time.



She is so embarrassed.

She is absolutely ashamed, because she _'s_ not _shy._ It's not something she does, not since she was six and got tired of people not hearing what she was trying to say. A take charge attitude got things done, and it was a mode of life Kate preferred to apply to all sections of it. Boys, (and that one girl in high school she'd crushed out hard on) and sex were pursued with about the same methodology. She did not get why _he_ was an exception and she had not one clue how to get out of that rut.

There were literally so many options. She could pretend she needed help for the three page PTSD excerpt that was due next week. She could get to him through asking the Professor for help, or come up to him before or after class.

He was just a man.

Men had stopped being impressive a long while ago, and she couldn't even prove that a single thought she was having about this particular one had any sort of basis. The slant of a strong jaw did not actually inform Kate's thinking that he might be a good kisser. The broadness and man-ness that he was had not one thing to do with her thinking he was just as solid as he looked. Solid and strong and just as devilishly talented as he was charming.

Normally, Kate aimed for bad boys. She'd always had a taste for kisses still smokey from a cig and the heat of two bodies whipped by wind on the back of a motorcycle. She was still saving to buy one of her own. Flannels were about the sexiest piece of clothing she'd ever seen a guy don, and there was no good reason for how badass she looked in a bandana, no matter where she was sporting it.

From what she'd seen so far, Richard Castle was not one of those. An aptitude for trouble maybe, in the knowing quirk of those rosebud lips on a very smart mouth, the broad spread of his hands, and the presence he couldn't help but exude...but not a bad boy.

Either way, it made no sense that she was a month through and she hadn't spoken to him, not once, and it was getting progressively insaner by the minute how crushed out she was getting on him.

It got bad enough that Espo noticed.

"You did it again."

Kate stops fiddling with her coffee cup, big hazel eyes and a slash of black eyeliner at her friend. Only she and Esposito had the misfortune to have gotten stuck with an early class twice a week. They met each time for a cup of coffee and trying to stay awake enough to get through their second class before crashing at home. Javier's brow is a little furrowed, and there's a deeper sort of weight in his smile that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Kate cleared her throat, forcing out a breath and shaking out her shoulders. "Did what?"

"You blushed. Just then, when I brought up the _one_ class you have so emphatically insisted you never need anyone to walk you to."

Had she? Jesus Christ. This was getting out of hand. _She_ was getting out of hand. "Uh, no you didn't. Maybe that's enough espresso for you." Kate tries halfheartedly to wrestle the cup away from him, but Esposito resolutely keeps his whipped cream coated condition in hand.

"Do you have a crush? Do you have a _boyfriend_? Please say I'm right, and you do, because if so Ryan owes me twenty dollars and I can finally get the new Modern Warfare." Javi's way too confident about this, all nodding head and easy slouch in the booth across from her, and Kate is properly scandalized. Served her right for keeping the same four friends for like her whole college career.

She kicks his leg under the table and he complains instantly, deeply aggrieved.

"Shut up." Kate retorts. "I do not."

Esposito hums but he doesn't sound an ounce convinced. "Maybe not yet, Beckett. But mark my words - I will be playing my game before the month is up."

She stammers some excuse or other, calls his manhood into question, and then switches the discussion to when he was taking a shower because he absolutely reeked. That time, Kate escapes by the skin of her teeth, but it's a brief reprieve. Questions arise about the sudden appearance of a book that she is suddenly reading instead of going to the club and it's odd connection to the writing class she never wanted to talk about. It comes from Ryan, the words fresh from escaping the curve of Jenny's neck, her blonde friend all blue eyed and rosy cheeks. It comes from Lanie, halfway into the bottle of wine that had been in Lanie's parents cellar before their daughter has visited for the weekend. It comes from Esposito, getting his hands slapped when she nabs the last pizza slice instead and he's feeling pouty about it.

And Kate's pressed about it, but also, _they're not wrong._

She hates that they're not.

* * *

It's ridiculous.

Kate knows it is.

And she's just about tired of _herself_ at this point.

So she decides it's time to get her shit together. There's her kicking ass and taking names recipe that's always served her well, and Kate follows it to the letter. A quick shot of bourbon before the four pm class (don't judge her okay if would literally be five o'clock there pretty damn soon), her favorite shade of nude lipstick, and the black leather boots that had once belonged to her mom. They were three inch heels and entirely not necessary for a Thursday class at just the break of evening, but Kate just couldn't care anymore. She needed the confidence that they gave her, dammit, and every press of the wedge under her heel was like a quiet reminder that she got this and it was not possibly as difficult and she has been making it.

When she slips in, it's only a couple of minutes before class starts. Kate knows she's disrupting the natural order of the class, sitting somewhere else than the six rows back she's intitially chosen to try and force the distance to stop her from wanting to race across all those desks and just jump him, but she's got a plan, okay, and it requires being much closer.

Two chairs back from where he usually sat, one solid row of sparse attendees between them, Kate settled down in the sunken classroom. Her fingers trembled a little when she opened the email app on her phone and her fingers typed out the Twelfth University email that was meticulously and overly thoroughly highlighted on the copy of her syllabus she carried in her messenger bag even when she didn't have to go to this class.

When he comes in, jogging lightly down the rows of steps with that _hair_ flopping too perfectly with every bounce, Kate's gut twists. She drops her gaze to her phone, not ready to fully look at him even now, with all this determination and a 60 proof burning through her blood.

She waits, just barely, heart beating like crazy until Professor Marlowe has the Well Written Character slideshow they get every class all booted up. Through the slight dizziness warming her head, a product of the adrenaline she was holding onto at his freaking back being so close to her, Kate realizes who the character is - one of the main characters of her favorite teen drama - and is kind of shocked that out of the two characters from that show that Professor could've chosen, he didn't pick the girl. His favoritism of thoroughly fleshed out female characters and thorough drinking of his respect women on television juice was both an inner joke with his students and an outer one he openly talked about in class. 

This line of thought slips right through her fingers when she spots the familiar blue of Microsoft Word opening on _his_ Surface Pro, and she panics briefly at the thought of interrupting his writing. Kate trying to make a move is not a damn sight close to important enough to risk that. To chance stopping him from writing more like the book that skyrocketed to her top ten five ever. She makes a typo before she catches it and corrects it, and when she hits send she finds herself spending some seconds praying that he didn't think she was spam, because wouldn't _that_ just be her luck. Kate tried to be incentive and everything, but just like with every out of the box thought it held half as much probability of it failing miserably.

Through a cracked eye, Kate spies the word document application get minimized. His email blows up, big and dark themed with a spiralling staircase background that Kate generally likes but also thinks would make awfully hard to read email titles. She knows exactly what he's gonna see; an email from her, with a police badge emoji as a title, but she hoped it was interesting enough to open. The text inside being clever enough to get a response.

_Stop! You're under arrest._

_You have the right to remain silent, though I doubt you will._

Okay, she admits it. Maybe Kate googled interesting pickup lines. Maybe, she thought as someone in pre law who secretly dreamed of being a detective, it would be funny if it was a law enforcement themed pickup line. And she wasn't technically wrong. Being quiet was only a thing he seemed to be able to do when words were falling out of very talented fingers on a word document Kate found herself curiously jealous of.

(Probably didn't help that her imagination helpfully had her thinking what it would be like to have his attention so wholly focused on her instead?)

She watches him, strains her eyes in the darkness, but she can only see that damn hair. Kate fills in the blank for herself - maybe his lips quirk, or she's gotten extended beginners luck and it's a full smile. Or, she'll never get a response and she'll wilt into a puddle of rejection and have to skip a couple classes.

She's gripping her phone so tight, so focused on how she might better melt into the uncomfortable wooden seats if she spent the whole class stuck in no response purgatory, and she almost missed the little vibrate. The envelope notification, with his name scrolling across the response. It seems crazy, just a little, to see the digitized _Richard Castle_ and know that for the first time it wasn't there of her own doing, or because something was sent out to the whole class.

_That's quite an introduction._

_Is the implication that I won't be quiet a double entendre about one or both of making various not safe for work noises, or are you just trying to tell me you'd learn better if I shut up in class?_

It is more words than Kate was expecting. 

The sheer amount of them is wild enough that it almost shadows the impact of revelation number two; that these are _Richard Castle words_ and they were written for her. 

_To_ her. Not for. 

_Your job as TA is to help me learn and honestly I would actually learn something if you did shut up, of course. You saw right through me._

_Had to think of a way to stand out. Seemed better than any unnecessary fawning, I'm sure you get enough of that._

Kate was a great liar. Truly stupendous. Because she, in fact, was one of those fawners. She had fawned for too long to be any other than a bald faced hypocrite. These, however, were all facts that he absolutely could not know about, so Kate bites her lip and stares at her phone and wills the campus wifi to be less crappy than usual. She hesitates for a moment, and then types out _I’m Kate_ at the end of the message. Even though her name is literally on the server just like his.

In the space of a minute or two, the lights flick back on. Professor Marlowe launches into the lecture of the day, but Kate could care less because there’s another email in her inbox.

_By all means, feel free to let me know if you need to be taught anything. I don't see what's wrong with fawning. Its an underrated form of flattery, as far as I'm concerned. And I’m Rick Castle. Pleasure to meet you._

_What're the chances that if I turn around right now you'll be looking at me too?_

God, he's cheeky. Kate bites her lip, already hovering over her keyboard to type back, before something clicks. She reads it, then rereads it again, and she can't help it. Her gaze shoots up and -

Oh.

_Shit._

Maybe she should've cared more about the whole lights being turned on situation, because Kate's vision is 20/20. She catches the players in the outer field spitting even before her dad at baseball games, she clocks signs before they're considered anything close to, well, _close_ , and that sharp vision is tunneling out everything right now except those eyes.

Those big, sleepy, impossibly blue eyes that mix shades of grey and navy with all the rest, bright and unwavering and seriously, dedicatedly, locked with hers right now.

(Kate thinks she's a bit faint, under the power of those damnably high definition eyes, and you know, maybe she's fucked up. Maybe she's out of her depth, but it's too late now. Its time to buck up or shut up and she can't let those inviting lips stay curled like that in thorough interest that has her flustered and hot under the collar. She can't let him think that even she was the one to make the first move, to cede the floor, that he has the upper hand. That was all he was gonna get from her, and he had to know.)

She panics.

She makes a quick decision.

Raise a brow and licks her lips. Just for the hell of it. For the bravery of it to hide how flustered Kate really felt. And there, at the last moment, captured her bottom lip between her teeth and smiles, just slightly, again.

(Thank God for all those nights Kevin and Javier insisted on playing poker to get hyped up for the gym, because she's never tried this hard to wipe the emotion from her face _ever_.

Special circumstances, and all.)

There a quick second, the moment registering in his gaze, and Kate's glad for a second that she's learned fuck all this semester so far because it's left room in her brain for _every single second_ of now, and then he reacts.

It's a grin, a real one, slow and satisfied and paired with a sparkle appearing in those deep eyes that absolutely took Kate out at her whole knees. Thank _God_ she was sitting down. 

So here's the thing.

Kate's never learned a thing inside the walls of this classroom but today she's learning _a lot_ . Today she never wants the near hour and a half stretch of time to end. Today she is flirting with Richard Castle on her university email account of all things and she is _learning_ things. 

She learns that his mom and Professor Marlowe are old friends, and that's how he ended up here. She learns that he likes the neat, tucked in, white button down that she is wearing and she feels a little faint at the compliment. She learns that no matter how engaged he is responding to her he still comments out loud to the class with playful, completely on topic quips every so often like it's a normal class and Kate isn't _literally_ messaging him. Like it's not blowing her whole mind. He doesn't bring up the authorship that she knows exists, which for some reason surprises her, but he does make some awfully witty double entendres. He teases the short near bob she'd gotten cut to near immediate horror just a couple weeks a go, and tells her that green is his favorite color. That he scheduled his office hours at the absolute worst time and he regrets it every week. He somehow gets the oddest details out of her, like her favorite cereal being Frosted Flakes and she's seen every episode of Parks and Rec four times.

When class ends, despite the events that had absolutely rocked her world, Kate makes a break for it again. Jumps at the opportunity of another student asking him a question to grab everything and book it up the stairs to the exit. Panic at what would happen when it went from virtual to real life wasn't something she had the courage to deal with yet. A day later, she tentatively walks in, purposefully almost late. She takes a seat at the back and has only settled in for a moment when there's a rustling at the end of the row and she watches, stock still frozen, at the sight of him making his way in her direction. At the purposeful look in his eyes that has her absolutely baffled when he doesn't take the bold seat next to her. He sets up his things an empty space away, opens his laptop, and fixes his gaze on the screen. A few minutes later, there's a notification at the top of her tablet and Kate's glad the the dark atmosphere hides the burning in her cheeks.

_A great man once said 'the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it'. Technically that was Oscar Wilde, but we'll just credit it to me._

_We're doing pickup line openers, right?_

Against her will, she softens. Again her will, she is thankful that this man, this Richard Castle, is letting her keep it in the classroom for now. And then she sets about writing a response.

They make it a week before he takes the last push. He sends her his phone number, barely ten minutes stretching until the end of class where restlessness has overtaken everyone and a paper is on the horizon, a paper Kate will have to pull out of her ass because she's only been writing emails and not taking notes. She finally texts him later at evening, and they talk all weekend - her hand to attached to her phone that her friends call her out on it and demand to know who's taking all of her attention. Kate tries to be more bothered about it, really she does, but novelist, TA, pretty man Richard Castle gave her his phone number, and asks on Monday night if she wants to get coffee after class.

She texts him _yes_.

* * *

He tries to wheedle her into letting him guess her coffee order, but Kate manages to stand her ground on that one. She’s going to need her standard if she’s going to seem un-flustered or hyperaware or any of the whirlwind emotions he’s got going through her body right now. Emotions caused by little facts like his eyelashes being even more lush up close, or that he's still a definite amount taller than her even in her heels, and he smells really, really good.

(Again, how _dare_ he. 

Really.)

“Does anyone ever call you Castle?”

His deep brows furrow at her while Kate hides the instant twinge of frankly ridiculous anxiety in a sip of her drink. The university cafe isn’t that busy on a Turesday evening, and there are only a few other people there. No one pays much attention to them, but that’s all well and good because Kate can only really focus on one thing. The man is blessedly not dressed in blue for once and that lack of a color gifts her with two of her brain cells.

“Not especially.”

She feels a kind of jealous satisfaction at that answer. “Then I will.”

“Okay.” He studies her, much like he’s been doing since she fumbled over collecting her stuff after class, since he decided to carry her laptop bag for her and wouldn’t let her protest, since she asked for sugar free vanilla and he told her chocolate with better in a tone of voice that suggested all sorts of things that sent awareness over her all over again. "I noticed you before, you know."

_He did?_

Shock makes Kate almost miss her mouth a bit and she presses the back of her hand to her mouth, eyes big. Color this a turn of conversational events she hadn't expected. He gets the second half of his order, a chocolate croissant to go with the coffee, and motions to a little black leather booth. They get settled and Kate makes it about two seconds before stumbling out "I'm sorry, you did _what_?"

"Yeah. C'mon, I have two working eyes. I saw you." Castle, as she resolves to firmly settle in her mind, finishes messing with their coats on the booth beside him, and finally satisfied, opens his pastry bag. "Turtlenecks and leather jackets. And a very cute haircut that not a lot of people can pull off, so bravo on that."

Kate actually reaches up a couple of inches to check at her hair before horrifiedly freezing and dragging her hand back to her coffee cup. Her hairs never been this short before. _Ever_ . But it was a half dare, and Lanie claimed she could carry off any hairstyle anyway and - she still wasn't used to the softly rounded bob. To the layered almost bang that sometimes hung in her eyes and the somewhat odd lack of weight on her shoulders and neck, to the dark color of the tresses. "Thanks." She mumbles an _I think_ into her drink and tries her best to act like her cheeks aren't on fire. There's a half a beat of silence, and it's in this moment that she gathers her confidence. Pulls herself together and fixes him with a determined stare. "So I'm on the pre law track. And for the most part my schedule is kind of busy."

Castle regards her. "Okay?"

"And I couldn't help but notice that you don't seem to be involved with anyone." _Involved?_ Someone remind Kate to emphasize the PRE on the LAW because there was no need to be bringing the big words out on this entirely more salacious than politically correct proposal. If she can even get the whole thing out before losing her nerve.

His bemused grin loses a couple watts at the question and he runs a hand through that dense, beautiful hair. "Uh, yeah. Currently. Why?"

"Because I have a proposal for you." Kate leans forward a little at the booth, hands warmed by heated vanilla and caffeine, and he leans with her. Attentive, even through whatever had caused his moment of bashfulness still painted just shy of scruffy cheeks a little rosy. " _I'm_ a consenting, attractive adult. _You're_ a consenting, moderately good looking adult."

"Moderately?"

Kate ignores him, because there was no way in hell she was going to let him know how viciously attracted to him she really was. "I've never been a TA before, but I imagine that you've got a busy, odd schedule. What say you to killing some time between us?"

There.

_There._

A quiet building happening in those smoky blues, ember like and hot. Castle laces his fingers together on the table, only a scant inch or so separating their hands now, and quirks a brow. Purses those soft looking expressive lips to form a word, and simultaneously distracts Kate from what they were talking about and the world outside of this crappy booth on her middling campus. "Romantic relationships are kind of frowned upon between TA's and the students in their classes, but...correct me if I'm wrong, that doesn't seem to be what you're asking." The turn of his lips indicate that he is entirely unopposed to this idea, and her stomach free falls there at the table, makes her grasp twitch a little and a breath catch in her lungs. 

"Who said anything about romantic? This is strictly opportunistic. The very nature of the reasons why we shouldn't is just even more reason why we should, because there’s an accountability that goes even above us." Kate wracks her brain for casual ways to convince him, trying desperately to focus on things that wouldn't drive her crazy versus the things that _very much_ were. Things like, the crinkle of pleather decades old under her dark skinny jeans instead of the fact that she’s close enough to smell him and he smells good and she wants _more_. Things like, there’s a kid from her Modern History of Terrorism course furiously gaming at his laptop not a few feet away and technically he could be a liability (LT's always been the quiet type though she was PROBABLY fine) and she should be thinking about that and not eyelashes that faded from warm brown to golden blonde at the edges. 

Kate’s so left field and out of her depth that caution has been thrown to the wind at this point and she’s along for whatever journey was going to take her.

She even dares to dart a hand forward, to tear off a bit of the croissant that was left in her mouth, which turns out to be one of the smartest things she’s ever done, because it shows her three things.

  1. That when Kate did so, Castle’s eyes flicker to lips and stay there for heartbeats too long.
  2. That his leg brushes against hers under the table she doesn’t move, awareness on every touch of the denim, and now their ankles ghost very, very near each other. Near enough to feel the heat he gives off.
  3. That when she makes a little hum at the taste of the pastry, his Adam apple works and his eyes dilate and that’s when she _realizes._



As much as she’s attracted to him, it looks as though he might be as attracted to her, and that was a game changer. Because it’s one thing for Kate to pretend to have the upper hand, and another for her to actually have it.

“Maybe...we can have a trial run?” Castle suggests, and it’s the first time he’s verbally agreed to her little proposition. The first time those words that he spills align to her way of thinking, and it’s a little lot. A little much. Temptation and heat trickles down her back and sides like rain on a window and Kate is done with this coffee shop. She’s done with the foreplay. She’s done with the wondering and lusting and thinking from afar for all this time, and even if it’s only once, it’ll be worth it. Just to put an end to everything she didn’t know.

“Sounds good to me.” She nods her head forward in agreement, then straightens up. “Are you busy right now?” The glass of her watch flicks up at her eyes from the pulse point at her wrist as Kate double checks.

Castle uses his phone screen instead, and then agrees as vehemently as she just had. “No pressing engagements until seven. I have office hours, but.” He grins, and it’s sharklike and boyish in all the best ways. “I’m not available today.” Kate suddenly gets the ridiculous idea that she’d like to be devoured by that mouth and heat rushes through her from head to toe. 

“I live a ten minute walk off campus and I don’t think my roommates are home.” She offers.

“Perfect. I’ve got a car.”

“Amazing.”

“Great.”

The stare at each other for a moment, dopey grins with a sensual undercurrent that only they felt, and Kate couldn’t believe she hadn’t been able to ask him to explain the hero’s journey to her for other for a month and a half only two weeks ago and now she was finally getting the chance to get him out of her system. To debunk or prove all the theories that had been multiplying and scampering like bunnies inside her brain (with about the same amount of sex drive) and to maybe get clean again. To learn something in this class she signed up for that skewed her entire life just because of him. 

“So….we should go?”

“Yes. Yes!” Kate pipes up in quick agreement. He gathers her jacket and she gets her laptop bag and her heart is in her throat, but it’s excitement and anticipation. It’s all coming to a head, finally, and that’s the only thing she can think about other than the crinkled eyes and big smile beside her and whatever might in front.

* * *

The first thing she hadn’t expected was that he would taste like rain.

There are a lot of things that she hadn't expected but she can only remember the first when he's kissing her like _that._

Somehow, they got from the shop to his car to her place. They went up the old brick steps marked by age, the worn black carpet and up the steps right next to the door. Kate maybe remembers waving a hand to the other bedroom Kevin and Ryan unfortunately had to share. When they’d collectively decided to rent the tiny townhouse in the neighborhoods at the edge of campus, they let her have a single bedroom because she was a girl and all. One of the few times she didn’t insist that her gender didn’t make a difference in things. They’d moved in in January, when Kate needed...space from home. Distance. It hadn’t been quite a year in the new space yet, but it still spoke of her. The lined up elephants on her dresser that her mom had given her from her office at home that stood empty for now, the leather jackets and boots in the closet. Her neatly organized record collection competing for space with near overflowing books. _In A Hail of Bullets_ shamefully taunted her until she’d shut it in a door and spun, hoping he hadn’t seen, but any such thought had been chased right out of her head.

Chased, right about the time that whatever question she would’ve asked was pressed against his tongue instead. The first touch of his lips to hers was gentle, a light graze that gave her more than enough time to pull away. And when she didn’t, when Kate leans in and chases his retreating mouth with hers, Castle _reacts_ . He is alive, suddenly, his hands cupping her face, fingertips in her short silky bob, and Kate has the faint thought that perhaps, despite all that wondering, _she’d had no idea_.

He is rain, a ghost of salt from the condensation that had hung in the air throughout the day, heat and the sharp taste of a mint that she hadn’t been quite sure she’d caught him popping before he’d shut the door to his car. Castle had let her lead this whole time, from approach to proposition to entering her home, staying a little behind her elbow and saying all the sweet, funny things someone should when entering a strangers home for the first time, but that was gone now. Now, he was taking this concept of a test run very seriously and seemed like he had something to prove.

Kate could not even fathom what that might be when he was sucking on her tongue like that and her every atom was on fire. Her arms loop around his neck, a greater distance than it had ever been with her heels left kicked her front door with his shoes, and lets herself lean into him. Lets his fingers dive through her hair and his mouth seek and plunder and find. She bites on his bottom lip and a low noise escapes his throat and suddenly she’s being hauled up against him, chest to chest. Her feet entirely leave the floor, his arm banding tight around her middle, and he is solid and warm and right that Kate _laughs_.

She laughs because he turns a slow kiss dirty and she’s met a precious few that have been able to do it as seamlessly as it should in her kiss career. She laughs because he is taller up close and smells spicy and earthy like her dads cabin and molasses and she’d never thought he’d smell like that before. She laughs because she’s kissing the man whose words she’d pored over instead of doing homework, who she’s been fantasizing about since he first strode into her lecture, and this is ridiculous. This is crazy. And she’s _kissing him_.

Somehow, they made it to her bed. He is between her legs, hot and heavy and dragging at the crease of her skinny jeans like it wasn’t driving her crazy. Like she’s not rising to frantic faster than she thought possible. Her legs, though longing to be free of their denim prison, are locked tight around his waist and one hand buried deep in that glorious, blessed, 90’s hair.

(She is happy to report it’s just as thick and silky against her fingers as she’d thought. His flop drapes right back into place after her black nails rake through it and it feels so good to find out that it all wells up in her throat again.)

Her burgundy blankets get wrinkled under her back and beneath her knee, when Castle pulls her further up, her head pressing into dark pillowcases, but neither of them seems to notice. Neither seem to care about anything but the furious loosening of his belt under her hands and the way that the tight clinging black is rucked beneath her bra by his inquisitive touch. Her stomach shivers at every run of blunt nails and he shudders, all strong shoulders and wide pupils when she pairs a lick at his mouth with an arch against him.

This time, when Kate laughs, he does too, though it flirts with confusion and ends with a trail against her chin. “What’re we laughing about?” Is warm and hot against her neck, especially with Castle’s finger pulling the neckline of her turtleneck down. She wants to burn that turtleneck, incinerate the fabric and take the bra with it so there’s nothing between. 

“Nothing,” she answers breathily, and pulls at his button down with eager fingers and a brighter smile. “What’s my grade so far?”

“A plus.” He says without missing a bit, diving back up to her mouth. “Me?”

“I don’t know. Might need some _aid_ remembering.”

Huh. Maybe teacher's aid _was_ his calling, because...he was really, really good at this.

And, well. Maybe this class hadn’t derailed her life too much after all.


End file.
